Reading Questions on The Structure of Scientific
Revolutions

Mon. 2/20

Ch. 1-2:
1. What is Pre-normal or Pre-paradigmatic inquiry (the state before any
paradigm has yet emerged)? What are some of the signs of this stage?

2. What is normal science? What three types of activities or foci of
activity does it involve?

3. What is a scientific revolution?

Postscript:
4. What are the two main senses of the word paradigm as used by Kuhn?

5. What is a disciplinary matrix? What are its components?

6. What is an exemplar? What role does it play in a paradigm and in normal
science?

Wed. 2/22

Ch.
3 -6:
1. How is normal science like puzzle solving?

2. Why is normal science so successful? Why does it progress so rapidly?

3. Does normal science encourage novelty? Why or why not?

4. What role does a paradigm play in normal science?

5. How is a paradigm not just a set of rules, but something more fundamental
from which rules may later be abstracted? How does a paradigm involve tacit
knowledge?

6. What is an anomaly?

7. Why does normal science naturally produce anomalies?

8. How does normal science naturally lead to revolutionary science? Why
would revolutions be less likely to occur in the absence of a paradigm?

Logical Postivism:
1. What is logical atomism?
2. What is emotivism?
3. What is the verificationist criterion of meaning?
4. What is the hpothetico-deductive method? How does it differ from logical
atomism?

Fri. 2/24

Ch. 7-8:
9. What is crisis or revolutionary science? What are some signs of this stage
of science?

10. How does science normally react to anomalies?

11. What causes an anomaly to prompt a revolution?

Ch. 9
1. What is meant by saying that two theories are incommensurable?

2. Can the theories in an old paradigm be derived from the new? Why or why
not?